My theory? Trying to keep retailers happy. It's easier to negotiate display preference with retailers when your platform does not compete with them via digital sales. That's my theory and not an excuse for them. I couldn't be bothered either way, data costs way too much in South Africa for full game downloads to be viable for me.

Understanding the consumer is crucial in this business. In fact in any business. This is simply what consumers have always wanted and have been enjoying thoroughly on Steam. It is a no brainer to be honest.

Besides Wal Mart won't sell cd's unless the producer agrees to Wal Mart's terms. That may only be for the music industry but it's not a far cry from this happening to games.

Microsoft seemed to be leading when it game to full game digital downloads earlier this generation. I remember this distinctly because PS3 fanboys swore that digital downloads would NEVER replace the physical format.

I was impressed to see recently released games already available for download on the PSN store. Good for gamers I guess, but this will bring about the death of game stores much quicker than anticipated.

I'm good with digital downloads, but I want to see more Steam like sales on Xbox Live and PSN (looks at full priced 5 year old map packs)

The link you provided supports everything I have said. I didn't say Xbox 360 was first, I said Microsoft placed more of an emphasis on DD earlier on this gen. SONY has only just begun releasing games digitally on the first day as of September of this year, following Nintendo's lead.

It is true PS3 fanboys talked up Blu-Ray and now they defend digital downloads. They tend to flip flop like that. It's the same when they say "we don't play sales" then send you PM's talking about sales.

DD's are shitty on consoles in general - PS3 allows the use of third party hard drives but games are like 25GB each. 360 only allows for insanely expensive proprietary drives, though games take up less space.

In either case, you'll be off much cheaper if you just buy games from retailers.

As for your statement about Ps3 fans flip flopping - that's not something exclusive to them. 360 and Nintendo fans do the exact same thing ;). Remember the whole "Ps3 has no games" arguments?

Of course they do....go back to sleep little one, those big bad other consoles won't hurt you any more. Oh! I see you've wet your bed again, naughty boy. Now go ask Mummy and Daddy to buy you a 360 so you can get some perspective and stop being a silly little fanboy.

I think they are giving xbox users what they want or ask for. Making multi player free would be a bad move sice this is not what they ask for.

Hey MS is successful so I can't tell them to do anything different. Not many new AAA IP's since gears 1. They won't allow cross play with portal 2 with steamworks. They make gamers pay for some free pc content like on l4d http://www.planetxbox360.co... & minecraft.

Who else can come to e3 and show off dash boards for 10 mins? & skip all the other gaming events? they get a very special love from xbox gamers.

If you call releasing games at £59.99 for download "getting it right", then I suppose you could say Sony do.

I wouldn't though, I think that's a colossal rip off by the various publishers. Sony let them set the prices, I think they need to change that policy and make it fall at least in line with physical copies....if not cheaper. Only then will downloading really take off.

As it is, they take advantage of the lazy or those unwilling to shop around for good deals. Fair enough, it can be played on another console via content sharing, but it's still a lot of money for a single game.

"As it is, they take advantage of the lazy or those unwilling to shop around for good deals. "

Then stop being lazy and search for good deals. I do it with anything I buy. To be fair, those people really aren't Sony's, Microsoft's or Nintendo's problem. In fact, those people earn them extra money - why would they change it?

It's kind of like taking advantage of a slow kid, it just doesn't seem right. Then again, if people are willing to pay such amounts, I can hardly blame publishers for not changing it. It just seems to me they'd get more sales if the content was much more reasonably priced.

I know. How can they rip us off when there is no physical disk loyalty fees, but we still pay 60 for a digital copy. Just wait for a price drop seen right to me. It would be cool if PS+ members get a discount with new releases.

Until digital versions significantly undercut the retail versions, then i ain't interested. Saw Gears of War 3 on Amazon for £15 but its £39,99 on XBL. I think it is a no brainer which one i will go for.